He's gone!

He left! He left and it reminds me so much of when dental school is in full swing... I fed, cleaned up, played with, bathed, read to, snuggled, and put Myla to bed all by myself. I cooked and ate dinner by myself. I folded laundry and cleaned by myself. I went to bed by myself and tucked myself in with my huge body pillow. Then, I woke up alone and started the day all over again - just me and the little jelly bean. We swam, we played, we practiced saying "ball", we read, we got bonks and feel better kisses, we went out with friends, we played some more (lots of chasing games tonight - she is so tickled by them!), we disagreed over the importance of getting jammies on for the night... and he's still not home. We miss our dude.

Good thing he'll be back tomorrow!

Black-eye Friday & Thanksgiving

Oh Brian. He always manages to make things interesting (2 broken feet, anyone remember that?). Well, luckily this wasn't as tragic as the fire pole episode, but it easily could have been!

For Thanksgiving we got to go to Queen Creek to have Thanksgiving with Brian's side of the family. There were tons of people there (as is usually the case with their family) and tons of cousins. Brian was playing night games and I was inside taking care of sweet Myla. Well, Brian comes rushing into the house with his hand over his eye and heads straight to the bathroom to assess the damage. Apparently he was running in the dark and got clotheslined. Literally. He ran into a clothesline. With his eye.

Someone was watching out for him and luckily there was no damage to his actual eyeball. He did get a impressively deep slice in the skin right next to his eye on the outside corner. 

His sweet (and talented) cousin, Natalie, stitched him up at her PA office and we were good to go. Thank heavens he didn't damage his eyeball - he needs both of them to be a dentist!!

With his stitch!

And our cute little muffin's first Thanksgiving :)

Christmas came early this year...

Brian got the Navy scholarship!!

They are going to pay for 3.75 years (we paid for the first quarter - they might pay us back for that), all of his books & supplies, his health insurance, and we get a living stipend! It is such a huge weight off of our shoulders. Midwestern is one of the most expensive dental schools and we figured that if we took out a 15 year loan for all of the expenses, we would end up paying around $700,000 in the end. CRAZY. But, not anymore!!

Our commitment to the navy is that Brian will serve as a Navy dentist for four years following dental school and will be in the reserves for an additional 4 years (we are told it is very, very rare for dentists to get called back in). He will probably be working on a naval base serving the soldiers and their families, but will likely have a tour on a submarine at some point. Good news is that the majority of the bases are by the ocean, so we will get to live close to the beach! Hawaii... California... Italy...? Wouldn't that be nice...

He worked very hard to get this scholarship and I couldn't be prouder - Good job, babe! Never thought I'd be a military wife!

And some pictures that I never posted from Brian's graduation from BYU and his white coat ceremony at midwestern (happened in October) --->

BYU graduation and white coat ceremony at Midwestern (I was 38 wks pregnant)

Brian and some friends from school after the white coat ceremony

24 weeks and 2nd anniversary!

This pregnancy sure seems to be flying by. I can't believe I'm already 26 weeks! TWENTY SIX! That means I only have approximately 14 weeks left to get my act together and be ready for this babe. 

Yikes.

I haven't taken any photos this week, but we did take some on our anniversary trip a couple of weeks ago... so here is my 24 week bump!

She's growing!

I still feel great - it is getting a little more uncomfortable to sleep.

Overall I feel very lucky with this pregnancy. Lucky to be pregnant and lucky to have a good pregnancy. I know I'm exposed to worse-case scenarios at my job and it makes me paranoid, so every time I go I thank my lucky stars that she is healthy, growing, and still in my belly!

Well, we also took our "2nd year" photo (we're trying to take one every year on our anniversary so we can see how we change through the years). Here is last year's...

And this year's!

Awwwww....

Well, things are starting to get crazy. I only have 2 shifts left at work and then we're packing up and then we're moving to hell the desert! 

I really am excited for the adventure, just a little nervous about the heat :)

Bear Lake Adventure

Life has been a lot of fun the last few months :)

A while ago, during Nurses' Week, I was oh-so-lucky to win a prize! At work, we are encouraged to donate a themed "basket" of some sort to be put in a raffle for someone to win during Nurses' Week. There were all kinds of baskets ranging from spa days to gardening kits to movie nights, etc etc. I think we each got 4 raffle tickets (or more if you donated a basket) and we got to choose which baskets we put them in. I was real excited when I saw one for a Bear Lake vacation. Brian and I had spent part of our honeymoon there and went back for our 1 year anniversary to get their famous raspberry shakes! 

We really do love it there.

We hadn't ever been there in the winter, however, and I was THRILLED when I won the basket! It included some ski/snowboarding passes, pancake mix and delicious syrup, a spatula (which we actually really needed), a gift card for a restaurant there, and a 2 night stay in a cute little condo! It was donated by the sweetest girl at work - thanks again, Erin!!

So, that was back in the spring and we'd been looking forward to going ever since. So, once Brian got done with classes and finals, we were off!

And let me tell you, it was no picnic getting there. I was afraid for my life. The roads were terrible. Every other small car we saw turned back or were slid off the road because they couldn't make it up the mountain. We also didn't make it up one of the mountains the first 2 times we tried. But, we were determined to go on our vacation and went really fast in order to get up the mountain. To say I was terrified would be an understatement. Brian was driving or we would have never made it. Want to see what the roads looked like? Check it out:

I was terrified

Anyway, we were SO grateful to make it there and settled right into our cozy condo :)

Isn't it cute?! For dinner we decided that we'd grill some hot dogs on the grill outside (the blizzard only made that more adventurous and fun). We wrapped them in bacon and they were pretty good despite the burned hotdogs. Sorry, hun.

For the next few days we got to relax, play in the snow, rediscover the town in the wintertime, go sledding and snowboarding, and eat delicious food! We felt very spoiled. It was a much appreciated vacation after Brian's super difficult semester!

The perfect little winter town - looks like it came right out of a Christmas card.

We were the only ones in the whole restaurant! Aaaand... the raspberry shakes were as good as ever!

All the boats beached for the winter...

We saw some real live moose! We were just out driving around looking around town when we saw an emergency vehicle go zooming past and up to this huge cabin. Using the zoom lens on the camera, we were able to see that there were moose in the cabin's yard! They came running down the hill right towards us and we were able to get a few good pictures. They were really quite cute... though I've heard they are super not the cuddly type. More like the attack you type. Especially because it was a momma and her baby! My first moose siting!

We can't wait to go back!

and another dental school!!

Found out yesterday that Brian also got into Roseman Dental School here in Utah! We're still waiting to hear about Loma Linda (Southern California) and Iowa. Roseman could be a good fit - I could keep my job, we wouldn't have to move very far, etc etc. Arizona would be a good fit too though because it is close to Brian's family. They are both excellent schools. Choices choices... I'm just glad we have some! I remember back when we were thinking we were crazy for wanting to apply a year earlier than planned. It was a crazy year of cramming in too many classes in too little time, studying for the DAT without having taken all the classes, and doing the insane application process... but it is all going to be worth it! Yay!

photo from http://rosemanu.wordpress.com/category/college-of-dental-medicine/

guess who got into dental school...?

Brian! 

We got an unofficial official call this morning from Midwestern University in AZ and they told him they had an "offer" for him and that he could see it online on Monday (they aren't supposed to be officially accepting people until the 3rd). 

So exciting! It is his top pick (I think - he changes his mind a lot). I think it's a great school... it's just so dang hot out there close to Phoenix. I'd melt. We will probably find out about other schools on Monday! So proud of my geek ;). 

First day of pre-dental classes so long ago - he was pretty enthusiastic about those chemistry goggles (if you can't tell!)

"So, how did the DAT go?"

Seems to be a common question nowadays. Well, after all the painful days of studying, waiting, and agonizing over the dreaded exam, Brian took it on Monday :). We were just so ready to have it be done. Part of me didn't even care if he did awful on it just as long as he quit studying and hung out with me.

Seriously. He studied ALL THE TIME.

Good thing hard work often pays off :)!

I am generally against bragging, but this is something to be proud of! He did better than we expected. Better than he had on all his practice exams. He got a 22 overall and a 23 overall in science! Not only that, but he got a 29 in organic chemistry. 29. According to the percentiles, that's better than 99% of people who take it. And.... he hasn't even taken the 2nd half of o-chem yet. He taught himself the reactions he needed to for the test. Oh, and special thanks to "Chad's videos." If you're taking the DAT, Brian highly recommends them for o-chem. For those of you who wonder "well, is that even good?", an 18-20 is recommended to have a competitive score. So, yay!

I won't go into detail about all the individual parts, but I am just so proud of him! Way to go Brian! He is such a smartie. So, applications are in, fees are paid (well, the ones we know about so far anyway), and now we just... wait. It will be so exciting to see where we end up :).

So, SO glad the DAT is over. May we never have to talk about it again.

our first anniversary :)

Brian and I had a very eventful weekend! 

We had thrown around a couple of ideas as to what we wanted to do for the big one year, but still hadn't decided on anything as of Saturday. Friday night we went on a campout with our ward and that was lots of fun... but then... I got food poisoning.

Ew.

So, I spent Saturday morning ralphing and Brian went and took a practice DAT exam (which he did well on, by the way :)). By Saturday night I was feeling better (and significantly more thin - the only benefit of food poisoning) and we decided it was time we made some plans! So, we looked into a few options and decided that we just wanted to get out of Provo at all costs!

We ended up going to Logan to the Anniversary Inn (yes, you may roll your eyes and gag at this point because of the unoriginality of this idea)... and let me tell ya, it was awesome! Maybe it's because Brian and I are such kids at heart, but we thought the themed room was so much fun! We stopped by Brian's uncle's house (Martin) on the way and picked up the amazing wedding video he made for us last year. We had actually never seen it because our copy never made it from the reception, and it was neat to watch it! I may or may not have gotten a little teary-eyed. He did such a wonderful job - THANKS MARTIN! I tried to figure out a way to post it on the blog, but no luck so far.

Monday we hung around Logan for a while and then headed up to Bear Lake where we had spent the majority of our honeymoon. We took some cheesy pictures: 

I got the idea off of Pinterest (where else?) to take a photo on every anniversary and then it will be really neat to look back and see how we've changed as the years go by. I'm sure we could do that with normal pictures too, but I think it will be really fun to do it on our anniversaries. So, we took a few and we'll decide which one is our favorite later. Probably not the kissing ones, but because this is a blog post about romanticy things, I just couldn't leave them out, right?

We, of course, went and got the famous raspberry shakes that Bear Lake had to offer. We got our two favorites from last time and man alive, they were tasty. I could've probably eaten 10. The first picture is of Brian eating the deliciousness last year and the rest are of this year. Still delicious.

I simply had to pose with the same ferocious bear too... again, last year on top, this year on the bottom.

After hanging around Bear Lake for a while and reminiscing, we headed back to Logan where we ate at the oh-so-delicious El Sol (not to rub it in your face, mom), and then went to my grandma's for a visit and to stay the night. I worked Tuesday so we got up a the crack of dawn and headed to Salt Lake where I put in a full day of work and Brian put in a full day of studying! It was a very eventful day at work, but I'll save that story for another day :).

I really can't believe that it's been a year since we got married. It has been such a great year and I am so grateful that Brian asked me to be his wifey. We have learned a whole lot this last year and I love him more than ever before. Here's to many more years to come! I blogged about our wedding and honeymoon here, here, here, and here

And some wedding pictures for good measure :)

Brian let me cut his hair!

It's true - Brian's fro is gone! Let's just say he was loooong overdue for a haircut. I asked him if I could do it and surprisingly he said yes. So, I bought some clippers on the way home from work and chopped off his lovely locks the next morning before I headed out to NM. 

I did quite well for my first time, if I do say so myself! 

BEFORE

POSED AND READY WITH MY CLIPPERS!

DURING...

 MULLET!

 aaaand


AFTER!

isn't he handsome?!

 ok, so I missed some around the ears :/   ^^

But hey, not too bad, eh? Let me know if you need a haircut - I am ready for some more victims!